MOUNT VERNON – Mount Vernon may take on fire and EMS protection for College Township and Kenyon College by staffing its Gambier fire station for $500,000 annually, if a five-year contract that was presented at a City Council committee meeting on Monday night is approved.
The City would be required to staff by Dec. 1 the fire station at 102 E. Brooklyn St. in Gambier — 24/7, 365 days a year — with a full-time firefighter/paramedic with the rank of lieutenant, a full-time firefighter/paramedic and a part-time firefighter/EMT, Safety-Service Director Rick Dzik said. Fire coverage would begin by June 1.
College Township had ended its service agreement with Monroe Township.
Adding these three firefighters increases the number of personnel on duty at any time for Mount Vernon from 9 to 12, another benefit to the city. Up to 25 part-time personnel will be hired to meet the staffing levels.
The township has fire protection and EMS equipment for the City’s use, including fire gear, EMS supplies, radios and fire tools. An ambulance and possible backup and a fire engine also are available for City firefighters’ use, though College Township would retain ownership of the vehicles.
The City would bill and retain proceeds from EMS transport, which Dzik said will be approximately $50,000 a year.
The contract requires a review of its terms by all parties every three years, though Dzik said Mount Vernon would review costs every year.
The $500,000 will cover the cost to the City for implementing a part-time program to staff the fire station. He said the union was agreeable to the plan.
The City has approximately 40 paramedics in the Mount Vernon Fire Department, which meets its needs, Dzik said. That enables the department to have some EMT-level staffing that will broaden the pool of firefighter candidates.
As part of the agreement, the City will maintain a volunteer firefighter program for Kenyon College students.
“I kind of put it akin to an internship,” Dzik said. “We have a lot of Kenyon interns in our engineering department. We’ll just have interns in our fire department now.”
Asked why the Kenyon College program was limited, he said this is the first use of volunteer firefighters and the City didn’t want to start too big.
“I think if this weren’t such an important program to Kenyon, and they weren’t a big contributor to this contract, I’m not sure we would necessarily decide to go the volunteer route,” Dzik said.
Fire departments depend on mutual aid to cover multiple calls or large events. Fire Chief Chad Christopher said having Mount Vernon firefighters in Gambier guarantees assistance coming from that well-trained staff responding from that station.
He said most training is handled in-house, so additional firefighters should not increase costs or be a problem.
Mount Vernon will still need a second fire station to serve the east side of the city following the Ohio Fire Chief’s Association recommendations, Christopher said. A suggestion to move firefighters serving College Township and Kenyon College into that anticipated future fire station would not meet desired fire call response times on the township’s east side.
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